Poison Ivy and STDs
by Rosi92
Summary: Written for the HouseFest on LJ. Prompt 21: Here's a tale of yet another eight stupid clinic patients... Mostly gen, with some mild HouseWilson, but you can pretend that they’re just really good friends if you like.


Disclaimer: I do not own House, MD.

AN: Many, many thanks to teyla for the super-speedy beta, and to X for helping me when this fic was in its early stages. Written for the HouseFest on LJ.

I.

"We didn't have any condoms."

House looked up at the woman in front of him, somewhat wearily. God, it had been a long day, and his leg was really hurting him. Damn Cuddy. He just wanted to go home. Damn clinic. Damn leg. He really didn't have the patience to deal with this idiotic patient right now. She had to be in her early thirties, House observed. Pretty enough, although she was certainly no supermodel.

"You _didn't_, did you?" Forget a note of sarcasm creeping into his voice, he'd ushered in a whole symphony.

"No. I mean, I thought I had a packet in my purse, but when I went to look they weren't there, which was weird because I could have sworn that I picked some up from the gas station the day before yesterday-"

"Yeah yeah yeah. Is there a point to this charming anecdote?"

"Um, yeah, sorry." The woman blushed slightly. "So Mark and I were talking, and we figured that basically all a condom does is catch the... the _stuff_, right? So all we had to do was find something else to catch it in."

House could feel his eyebrows rising ever higher. This was getting more unbelievable by the second.

"I'm an art teacher," the woman continued. "At an elementary school. And I have a lot of supplies at home. I figured... we figured that the... well, you know those chunky felt tip pens? We figured that the lid of one of those would do the... do the job. If I put it up… there."

Immediately, around ten deliciously acerbic remarks sprung into House's mind, but he didn't dare open his mouth in case the stupidity was contagious and airborne.

"And now it's... well, I can't get it out."

Resignedly, House pulled a pair of gloves from the box in one of the cupboards and snapped them onto his hands.

II.

"I just didn't know what else to do," sobbed the middle-aged woman, clutching at the crucifix that hung around her neck. "He's just… I've never seen him like this, not ever. I'm so scared."

House looked down at the teenage boy on the exam table. The kid was curled on his side in the fetal position, gripping an emesis basin in his hands and generally looking incredibly miserable. He also reeked of alcohol. How the mother had not smelled it, House had no idea. Denial was a powerful thing.

"He's been vomiting and having headaches," the woman continued tearfully, "And he has photophobia. I think-" She broke off, her voice catching in her throat. "I think he might have meningitis. Doctor… is my son going to die?"

House couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Not today." He sniffed loudly. "You smell that?"

The mother looked at him, perplexed. "What?"

"It's the stench of sin!" House announced happily. He fixed his gaze on the son. "How old are you, kid?"

"Fifteen," the boy muttered.

"You've got six years to while away before you get to do this again. Legally, anyway."

"What do you mean?" asked the mother. "Doctor?"

"Your son," House informed her, "is in acute alcohol withdrawal. Or, to put it simply, he has a hangover. Rest and fluids, and he'll be fine in 24 hours."

"No meningitis?"

"Nope. He's fine. Now stop wasting my time."

He turned to leave, just as the room exploded in parental anger behind him. He smirked. People were so _stupid_.

III.

"What seems to be the problem?" asked Cameron, as she closed the door of Exam Room One.

"What do you think?" snapped the girl on the exam table. "I would have thought it was fairly obvious." Cameron checked the chart; Clarissa McLaren. Sixteen years old. No information on what condition she thought she was suffering from. Cameron snapped the file shut and looked at Clarissa.

Clarissa didn't look particularly ill to Cameron. On the contrary, she was sitting upright, her arms crossed in annoyance and her face screwed up. She was quite pretty, Cameron thought, although a small number of blackheads spread across her cheekbones didn't do anything for her.

"Indulge me. Tell me your symptoms," Cameron said.

"My face!" Clarissa shrieked.

"What about it?" Cameron asked, confused.

"It's… it's hideous! I've got a…" Clarissa reached into the pocket of her cropped jeans and pulled out a folded square of paper. "…a butterfly rash," she read.

Cameron raised her eyebrows. "I can't see one."

"The, the spots, on my face! They're disgusting, don't pretend you can't see them! My mom has lupus, she gets rashes like this! I have lupus, don't I?"

"Uh, I wouldn't have thought so," Cameron soothed. "Those spots look more like acne to me. I can get you a cream-"

"I don't have acne!" Clarissa sounded disgusted. "I… I wash! I use Clearasil, every morning. I drink two liters of water a day. I can't have acne, it has to be lupus!"

"Well, do you have any other symptoms?"

Clarissa gave Cameron a withering look. "No."

"Well, if you had lupus, you'd almost certainly have other symptoms; fatigue, malaise, fever. And the rash you'd have would be butterfly-shaped, as the name suggests. Your acne-"

"I do not have acne!"

Cameron chuckled under her breath, and began to write a prescription for an antibiotic cream.

IV.

"I'm losing my hair. You have to do something. I'm going to go completely bald." The man was twisting the corner of his shirt between his fingers. House would have guessed that he was in his early fifties, at least. "And I'm absolutely exhausted, all the time."

House frowned. "Me too. The going bald part, anyway. It's called middle age. Or in your case, rapidly approaching old age. I'm just going to go ahead and write you a prescription for 'get the hell out of my face'."

"No," protested the man, "It's hypothyroidism, I'm sure it is."

House narrowed his eyes. "You have a medical degree?"

"Well, uh, no, but I did look it up. On the Internet. To check. I mean, I didn't want to waste anybody's time-"

"And yet, unfortunately, that's exactly what you seem to be doing. Seriously. You're fine. Just old. Go have your midlife crisis somewhere else.

"But I asked my brother, he's a chiropractor and-"

"What part of 'midlife crisis' did you not understand? Out. Now."

The man gave him a hurt glare, before getting to his feet and leaving. House let out a sigh of relief.

"Okay, you can come out now. He's gone."

With a sigh of relief, Wilson scrambled out from where he had been hiding under the exam table. "God, my legs," he groaned, standing up gingerly and beginning to stretch out what had to be some seriously cramped muscles. "Seriously, House. We're never doing it at work again."

V.

Foreman studied the young woman with a critical eye. He was pretty sure he knew why she was there. There were no outward signs of illness, but she looked decidedly uncomfortable about being in the clinic. Sex-related, he deduced. STD or pregnancy. Or both.

"It-" she began, before stopping abruptly and looking down at the floor. "It itches," she continued after several seconds of silence. "Down there," she added, as though Foreman hadn't guessed.

"Okay," Foreman said, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. "Are you sexually active at the moment?"

"Yes," she told him, almost instantly. "I have sex with my boyfriend every night, except on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, because he has to work, but I have a picture of him that I keep by my bed, and I look at it while I masturbate on those nights, because Michael says that it helps keep everything lubricated."

Oh. Way too much information there. "Um, alright then," he said, attempting to recover from the feeling as though he had been hit over the head with something heavy and metal.

"Do you think that's it?" the girl continued, her eyes wide with worry. "I read somewhere that if you masturbate too much you go blind, so I thought that maybe it might make me-"

"No, no, I doubt that's it," Foreman interrupted. "Do you and your boyfriend use a condom when you have sex?"

"No!" The girl sounded horrified. "I'm on the pill, and you only need a condom for gay sex, don't you?"

"Not exactly-"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're just as likely to catch an STD through heterosexual sex."

"Don't be… That's just silly," the girl laughed. "There are chemicals in the, you know, vagina that kill the STD germs, aren't there?"

Foreman managed to stop himself from laughing out loud, but it took a great effort. "Um, that's not really how it works," he told her. He took a deep breath, and began to tell her how STDs were passed on. He should have been a Sex Ed teacher, he really should have been. At times like this Foreman didn't get why House hated clinic duty so much. Stupidity could be incredibly entertaining.

VI.

"Dere'b someding wrong wid me."

Cuddy gave the elderly woman a sympathetic but tired smile. "Looks like a nasty cold." Suppressing a yawn, she reached out for a thermometer and popped it into Mrs. Miller's mouth. "Keep that under your tongue, and don't try to talk for a minute."

After the minute had elapsed, Cuddy removed the thermometer from her patient's mouth, and looked at the readout. "98. That's nothing to worry about; you don't have a fever."

"I dink I hab TB."

"I don't think so. TB is incredibly difficult to catch within the USA. Have you traveled abroad recently?" Cuddy attached the BP cuff to Mrs. Miller's arm.

"No, bud my sister has."

"Is she sick too?" Cuddy checked the reading; 122/81, fine.

"No, bud-"

"You don't have a fever, and your blood pressure is absolutely normal. Your pulse was fine, and your lungs sound normal. It looks like an upper respiratory tract infection. Or, in other words, a cold. Go home, stay in bed for a few days, plenty of fluids, okay? Come back if you don't feel better in a few weeks."

"I-"

"You're good to go, Mrs. Miller." Cuddy forced her aching face into a painful smile, and chivied Mrs. Miller out of the door, before collapsing against the wall in utter exhaustion. She would never admit it to House, but she hated clinic duty with a vengeance. _Especially_ during cold and flu season. The clinic was constantly flooded with hypochondriac after hypochondriac, all believing they had avian flu or SARS.

Damn. Maybe Wilson would take a few of her clinic hours for her. If House hadn't been off sick with the flu she would have found an excuse to unload an extra ten hours or so onto him, but such was the way of the world. At least House wasn't trying to convince her that he was dying of the plague.

She took a deep breath, forced another smile, opened the door and stepped out into the war zone that was her hospital once more.

VII.

"I'm pregnant."

House slammed the door shut angrily, making the young man on the exam table jump violently. Only ten in the morning and it was already a crappy day. His fellows were being even more dense than usual, and refusing to agree to the treatment plan he had recommended. Cuddy was yelling at him and Wilson wasn't talking to him, both for reasons that House was unclear on.

"And I volunteer at an animal sanctuary," House informed the man, smashing his cane into a nearby cupboard for additional effect.

The man winced again, before continuing. "I have all the symptoms. I've been having morning sickness, fatigue, and, well. My, uh, my breasts. They're swollen and tender. I'm pregnant, I swear to God. I checked on-"

"I swear to God that if you say that you checked on the Internet I'll smash you in the balls with my cane," House snapped, all in one breath. "You are not pregnant. You are, however, hormonal and/or delusional. Whichever one, I'm not dealing with you. Ask Nurse Brenda at the desk outside to refer you to Dr. Cuddy."

"I can feel the baby," the man told him earnestly, reaching out to grasp House's wrist. "I can feel it inside me."

House pulled away from the patient, irritated. "Get your hands off me."

"Touch it! You can touch it, it's there-"

"Thanks, but no thanks."

The other man looked balefully at him, eyes brimming with tears. "If you don't believe me, can't you at least call an obstetrician? It's…" his voice dropped dramatically in volume, "It isn't a normal baby. It's evil. It… I need to have an abortion. Please, get me someone that can get rid of this Satanic creature."

"You need a psych consult, not an OBGYN."

House stormed out of the exam room, slamming the door shut behind him. In fact, he stormed all the way back to his office, without bothering to check whether or not his patient asked Nurse Brenda for another doctor. However, by the time he had sat down in his chair, turned on some music and beaten his Solitaire high score seven times, he began to see the funny side.

VIII.

"Is that a-"

"Poison ivy," the patient announced - somewhat proudly, House thought.

"How," House began, struggling to keep a straight face, "on God's earth, did you manage to get a poison ivy rash on your penis?"

"I like that kind of thing," the man said, defensively. "Have you got a problem with that?"

"Evidently you have, or you wouldn't be having an allergic reaction." House paused, partly for effect and partly to gather his wits. "So is it… is it… just… why? And how, for that matter?"

"Pain gets me off, and I didn't happen to have a spare dominatrix lying around."

"So you… you masturbated with poison ivy."

"Yes. I did."

House's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "Did it have the desired effect?"

The patient was beginning to look decidedly uncomfortable. "Is that medically relevant?"

"Of course. It's an important doctor question." House settled down onto a wheeled stool and pulled himself closer to John Smith. "I have a few more for you, so make yourself… as comfortable as you can get."

Five minutes of questioning later, the patient stormed out, and House paged Wilson inviting him to buy House lunch. The two of them spent half an hour discussing Poison Ivy Man in explicit detail. And when Cuddy tracked House down and ordered him back to the clinic, House wasn't nearly so reluctant to go.


End file.
